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Harper: Increased Warfare Will Solve Refugee Crisis

This week an image went viral of a lifeless child who had drowned after the boat he was on capsized; along with several of his family members. The image has struck a chord with many around the world, and a number of citizens from the UK to Germany, and other countries, are now pressuring their governments to do more in order to help those who are fleeing violence oversees. #Refugeeswelcome has been trending this week on Twitter, with many citizens signing petitions and pledges, promising to provide shelter and support to refugees who their country will let in.

In the UK alone, thousands of people have pledged their support to help resettle Syrian refugees, and a growing number are determined to lobby local authorities to help them extend help to those who are suffering. There are also many in Canada and other places in the world, who want to help these people too. Whether it's with sending money, offering their home, offering emotional support, there are many different ways that people can help. Some of the easiest ways to help are to contact your local authorities and express concern over the issue. Another way to help would be to become a private sponsor, Canadians can volunteer to support an individual or a family for one year. They can choose to collaborate with friends, neighbors, professional organizations, and more, they don't have to sponsor alone. Another method to help is to donate money to groups that are dedicated to bringing refugees to Canada, or to support an aid organization that is working directly on the ground in the area. It is quite often non-government organizations that will be on the front-line of offering humanitarian support during crisis such as the current one in Syria.

Not everyone wants to help in such a peaceful way however. Harper came out this week and rejected calls for Canada to take more immediate action over the crisis. Instead, Harper proposed that increased military action was required in order to address the root causes of the problem. Although, he did promise that if he gets re-elected, that he would pledge to allow at least 10,000 Syrian and Iraq refugees into the country. “Millions of people are being pursued, slaughtered by the so-called Islamic State and its allies and we have to do something about that,” said Harper.

Thing is, Canada along with the U.S. and other nations, has been inflicting violence on the area for quite some time now. It doesn't seem to be helping the situation one bit, if anything the problem only seems to be getting worse. Harper wants to put out the fire with more gasoline, despite many Canadians wanting Canada to return to an emphasis on promoting dialogue and encouraging peace-keeping efforts. Since the media first started mentioning these terrorists, the stories surrounding them and their horrendous acts have only grown more frequent over time. It looks as if Western foreign policy is only making the situation worse and not better.

Harper stated this week that he couldn't understand “how [someone could] look at these images and conclude we should walk away and let those people be killed because we don't want to participate in a military engagement. I think that's completely irresponsible.” Well, what's also (if not more) irresponsible, is inflicting more violence on an area, when your violent methods up until now haven't proven to be the least bit effective. Not only that, but the violence also increases the loss of innocent life.

Harper might be interested in spending billions of dollars overseas on a ghost-chase, but there are many Canadian citizens who disagree and who don't want to be engaged in this ongoing warfare. We don't need to follow the U.S. around on its mission of policing the world. Doing so only damages our own nation; worsening the economy, our reputation, and hurting the citizenry. Our nation is in a technical recession right now, and a sound monetary decision for the country surely isn't wasting many more billions of dollars on never-ending military conflicts.